Tuesday, October 18, 2011

A WHALE OF A TIME | Eiji's 1st Birthday

Yep! I'm a GrandAunt. We celebrated my grand nephew's 1st birthday in August and I wanted to surprise him with something really cute. A cupcake tier with a cute little paper whale. I'm not brave enough to make a fondant figure of that size and I wanted something I can keep for awhile too. Here's a mini tutorial and if you want the whale template, please drop me a note and I'll send you the template.

Building the tier was like playing with building blocks. I bought a few cylindrical styrofoam blocks from Artfriend, The Gardens, Megamall. I think they costed a few bucks, but before you go buying the whole tube, you have to make sure you have a styrofoam cutter big enough to cut them into the size you want. I recycled & mixed a few pieces from my previous projects. Also take note of the amount of cupcakes you want to display and have a few cups around for placing when you assemble the whole entire thing. I took a snap shot to judge how tall and how many tiers I needed and made sure they were stable enough. I must say, I was pretty accurate. LOL! So once you have the tier assembled, Step 2 is pretty relaxing. Wrap the pieces in coloured paper of your choice. Use double sided tape to secure. Glue all the pieces and assemble with any white crafting/styrofoam glue ( PLEASE DO NOT USE UHU or ANY SOLVENT BASED GLUE Styrofoam will melt!!!) Have someone help you judge whether it is centralised or not. No worries, you can still push the pieces around, the glue dries overnight.

I found the coolest whale template online and decided to make one for the top of the cupcake tier. E-mail me for the template.

The instructions are in Japanese, but no worries, It's as simple as matching A-to-A, B-to-B. I printed the template onto fine photo gloss paper. Oh, yes, I even changed the colour of the template to match the entire baby blue theme. So if you have adobe illustrator you can do this with a click of the mouse. To really secure the entire mobile, I had to use super glue for this, but any good quality paper glue will be sufficient. Do the pieces slowly, so that the glue dries in time before the next step. The 3D effect comes when you piece the head and the tail together. And depending on how strong the bond of the paper when it was earlier pieced. So be patient! Wait for things to dry.

Finally done! There's a hole at the bottom so you can secure it to a base.

Left this to dry for a day or two. I lacquered it with shiny modge podge! Love the shiny effect on the paper mobile. A few layers in between drying time.

Baking the cupcakes and the assembly. Close-up shots of some of the fondant toppers I made a couple of days earlier.

Sunshiny days! and Yummy Caramel cupcakes.

Little whales on cream cheese icing.

And of course, one special cupcake with Eiji's name. Made these with cookie cutters. Had to layer the fondant, believe me, popping out the letter E is a 'skill'. The icing had to be more so that the letterings will stick nicely on top.

Close up of the cupcake tier. I used wide ribbons for the edges. Asked a few friends if the whale should be facing east or west. LOL!

I used foam sheets and cut out waves and swirls for the water spray.

Pictures! Lots of pictures were taken.

More pictures of the cupcake tier.

Eiji's family.

The foam sheets really looked like fondant, isn't it? I prefer using this than fondant. A lot gets thrown away if you use fondant, with this method, you can actually recycle the tier. All you have to do is replace the mobile and mix and match some of the pieces.

Oh yes, always have extra cupcakes, just in case.

I love how sparkly little whale looks after the modge podge lacquer.

Me and my niece. She''s a cutie pie and she just won a beauty contest.

Eiji in a daze!

HAHAHAH! My brother in law having a blast. It's actually funny how Mcdonald's can bring out the kiddo in all of us.